CHAT SOFTWARE

• US 20090199111A1
• Filed: 01/22/2009
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: G-mode Co., Ltd. (Marvelous Inc.)
• Original Assignee: G-mode Co., Ltd. (Marvelous Inc.)
• Inventors: Emori, Terumi, Tsubakihara, Jiro, Suzuki, Yoshitaka
• Application Number:
  US12/357,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20090199111A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/00 Animation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation

Abstract

Provided is a display method for visually distinguishing an avatar which speaks actively from another avatar which does not speak so actively. A server scores each avatar depending on whether messages are old or new and on frequency to speak, and sends the score to terminals. The terminal which received the score sent from the server arranges an avatar with a higher score at a position easily seen by an operator of the terminal, so that the operator understands the ranking of the avatars at a glance.

Claims

1. Chat software comprising a display module and an arithmetic module, and displaying a participant in a chat room established by a server connected via a communication module as an avatar, wherein

the communication module receives a score sent by the server;

the arithmetic module determines a display position of the participant in the chat room based on the score received by the communication module; and

the display module outputs the avatar to a connected display device based on the display position.

2. The chat software according to claim 1, wherein,

when chat data including a user ID of a speaker and text data of a message are sent from the server,

the communication module receives the chat data;

the arithmetic module creates, with regards to the chat data received by the communication module, a speech balloon object including information on the display position, the user ID of the chat data, and a speech balloon priority for determining an order among a plurality of speech balloons; and

the display module outputs a speech balloon with regards to the speech balloon object to the display device based on the information on the display position stored in the speech balloon object.

3. The chat software according to claim 2, wherein,

when a plurality of the speech balloon objects exist, the arithmetic module performs collision judgment of the speech balloons and updates the information on the display positions stored in the plurality of speech balloon objects;

and

the display module outputs the speech balloons of the plurality of speech balloon objects to the display device based on the information on the display positions after update.

4. The chat software according to claim 3, wherein,

when the plurality of speech balloon objects are present, the arithmetic module updates only the information on the display position of a speech balloon object having a lower speech balloon priority when performing the collision judgment among the speech balloons.

5. The chat software according to claim 2, wherein

the speech balloon object having a smaller value of the speech balloon priority has a higher speech balloon priority.

6. The chat software according to claim 5, wherein,

when the communication module receives the chat data, the arithmetic module increments the value of the speech balloon priority of the existing speech balloon object by one.

7. The chat software according to claim 2, wherein

the speech balloon object having a greater value of the speech balloon priority has a higher speech balloon priority.

8. The chat software according to claim 7, wherein,

when the communication module receives the chat data, the arithmetic module decrements the value of the speech balloon priority of the existing speech balloon object by one.

9. Chat software comprising a display module and an arithmetic module, displaying a participant in a chat room established by a server connected via a communication module as an avatar, and managing a current display position and a target position after movement of the avatar by an avatar object corresponding to the avatar, wherein

the communication module receives a score sent by the server;

the arithmetic module determines the target position after movement of the avatar of the participant in the chat room based on the score received by the communication module, and records the target position after movement determined for the avatar object corresponding to the avatar;

when the current display position and the target position after movement of the avatar object corresponding to the avatar are different, the arithmetic module calculates an updated display position and records the calculated updated display position as a current display position of the corresponding avatar object; and

the display module outputs the avatar to a connected display device based on the updated display position.

10. The chat software according to claim 9, wherein,

when chat data including a user ID of a speaker and text data of a message are sent from the server,

the communication module receives the chat data;

the arithmetic module creates a speech balloon object including information on the display position, a user ID of the chat data, and a speech balloon priority for determining an order among a plurality of speech balloons with regards to the chat data received by the communication module; and

the display module outputs a speech balloon with regards to the speech balloon object to the display device based on the information on the display position stored in the speech balloon object.

11. The chat software according to claim 10, wherein

the avatar object further stores a user ID;

the user ID of the speech balloon object and the user ID of the avatar object are compared, and when the user ID of the speech balloon object is the same as the user ID of the avatar object, the arithmetic module creates drawing data for a speech balloon line for drawing a speech balloon line between the avatar corresponding to the avatar object and the speech balloon corresponding to the speech balloon object;

the arithmetic module sends the drawing data for the speech balloon line to the display module; and

the display module outputs the speech balloon line to the connected display device based on the drawing data for the speech balloon line.